Van der Ende isn’t just one of those guys who collects the odd scrap here and there – he hoards wood like squirrels stock up on acorns for the winter. His sculptures rely on thousands of pieces of scrap wood and to get all the right colors, he hunts for scraps in the dumpsters of Rotterdam. If he can’t find the color he needs for one of his sculptures, he heads to a warehouse near Rotterdam that stores more than 7,000 old doors to find what he needs.

After finding the scrap wood doors, cabinets, and planks, van der Ende takes the object apart, removing any nails, screws and hinges and then he uses a saw-bench to cut the wood into veneers around 3mm thick. The bulk of the sculpture is constructed out of the plain wood veneers and then the colored veneers are added as the final layer to the bas-relief shape. He uses glue and nails to adhere the veneers and relies on perspective to exaggerate the form of the sculpture. In total, the amazing sculptures can take 6-8 weeks each to complete!